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Biz plan question: Who are my customers??

Anna245Anna245 subscriber Posts: 3
edited July 2009 in Business Planning
i`m working on an online community catering to a specific niche. it will be a typical online community w/ forums, polls, videos, etc. but focusing on a specific niche. in the future i will be offering products/services for sale but for now i am putting up google ads/commission junction/and anyone else who wants to advertise is welcome.
i am creating a business plan to get all my thoughts down and my question is are "advertisers" considered customers too? after all, you are providing them with a service- exposure to a group of people they want to target.

Comments

  • RanksIntlRanksIntl subscriber Posts: 0
    Hello Anna!
     
    I think that this question really depends on the level of advertisement and what they are advertising.  If for instance, it is simply a backlink to another site it would likely be in your best interest to simply view them as a partner and simply contact the webmaster to swap links thereby having traffic driven to your site from their`s as well.  If it is a full advertisement that you are receiveing payment for then I would likely view them as customers as well but for your records, your business and your business plan distinguish them as perhaps one group being customers and the other clients or consumers.
     
    If you need any help I specialize in small business start up and expansion and I would be happy to assist you! 
     
     
  • ElementalUnityElementalUnity subscriber Posts: 3
    Completely agree with both of you.  But Anna, here is some advice, use some other affiliate other than CJ, there are many better out there.  If I knew what your niche in I could even suggest a few, but don`t worry that wasn`t an attempt to get you to tell me haha.  CJ is good and all, but if you are looking for better conversions and everything I wouldn`t suggest them.
    --Elements
  • Anna245Anna245 subscriber Posts: 3
    thanks guys for the comments!
    i downloaded one of those templates from score and i gathered market demographics for users already. would i need to gather market demographics for clients??
    @ ElementalUnity- i`m working on a project that targets a "mass-niche" similar to what circleofmoms.com but in a different area of interest. circleofmoms generates revenue through an amazon affiliate store as well as advertisements.... i hope to follow a similar model as well as providing white label services. i think that in the realm of social networks, people say that you either have to go mass or niche but i think "mass-niche" is the way to go . "Niche" in the sense that it`s targeted towards a group of ppl that share the same interests/common goals but "mass" enough that there`s enough ppl to target. I think disaboom.com is another ex. of a "mass-niche". 
  • ElementalUnityElementalUnity subscriber Posts: 3
    Well Anna I personally would never go for a "mass-niche" as you call it, I would call it a market.  haha.  There would be too much competition for my liking.  But to each his own as the going says.  The only advice I can give you, is that I hope you have a great idea on how to brand yourself and stand out from all the rest.  It probably is going to be hard to get a decent ranking in the search engines by going after such a big market.  Same goes for adwords or whatever program you use.  So you are going have to do this by word of mouth and getting things viral.  
    But by going with Amazon affiliate is a good decision, a lot of people don`t realize that you are actually gaining money from these links because a lot of people don`t realize Amazon has an affiliate program.  So in most cases people will see the link and think you are trying to help them, and from a business they can trust like Amazon.Let me know how everything goes.--Elements
  • NovashunNovashun subscriber Posts: 4
    Anna,
     
    Dont waste time with CJ, their site is slow and very difficult for webmasters to pull code and use. Their contact us sucks, its unorganized, and the entire site needs some help. Elemental is right on the money with Amazon !
     
     
  • WebJunkyWebJunky subscriber Posts: 8 Member
    thanks aishwarya! jkirby you know what i am talking about
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